Trump says he talked to Apple CEO Tim Cook about a 'very large tax cut'

President-elect Donald Trump.
Thomson Reuters
President-elect Donald Trump said Tuesday during an interview with The New York Times that Apple CEO Tim Cook and Microsoft founder Bill Gates had called him after the election to congratulate him on his victory.

"I was honored yesterday, I got a call from Bill Gates, great call, we had a great conversation, I got a call from Tim Cook at Apple, and I said, 'Tim, you know one of the things that will be a real achievement for me is when I get Apple to build a big plant in the United States, or many big plants in the United States, where instead of going to China, and going to Vietnam, and going to the places that you go to, you're making your product right here.' He said, 'I understand that.' I said: 'I think we'll create the incentives for you, and I think you're going to do it. We're going for a very large tax cut for corporations, which you'll be happy about.' But we're going for big tax cuts, we have to get rid of regulations, regulations are making it impossible. Whether you're liberal or conservative, I mean I could sit down and show you regulations that anybody would agree are ridiculous. It's gotten to be a free-for-all. And companies can't, they can't even start up, they can't expand, they're choking."

Trump, several times during his campaign, threatened Apple specifically with taxes on imports from China, where Apple's products are manufactured.

"I'm going to bring jobs back," Trump said in March. "I'm going to get Apple to start making their computers and their iPhones on our land, not in China. How does it help us when they make it in China?"

After the election, Cook sent a memo to all US Apple employees that did not refer to Trump by name but did include some language about celebrating diversity, which was widely seen by observers in the tech industry as a rebuke to Trump's anti-immigration platform.

Apple has yet to comment on Trump's remarks publicly. Microsoft declined to comment. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation did not immediately return a request for comment.